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Exported Third Party Packages

Liferay provides over one-hundred third party Java packages at run time. The com.liferay.portal.bootstrap module exports the packages by specifying individual packages explicitly and groups of packages using globs. For example, here is an excerpt from 7.3.4-ga5’s Export-Package declaration:

Export-Package:\
    ...
    \
    org.aspectj.*,\
    \
    org.dom4j.*;version='2.1.3',\
    \
    org.hibernate.*;version='3.6.10',\
    \
    org.jaxen.*;version='1.1.6',\
    \
    org.jdom.*;version='1.1.3',\
    \
    org.json.*;version='20180813',\
    \
    org.objectweb.asm;version='7.0',\
    org.objectweb.asm.commons;version='7.0',\
    org.objectweb.asm.signature;version='7.0',\
    org.objectweb.asm.tree;version='7.0',\
    org.objectweb.asm.tree.analysis;version='7.0',\
    org.objectweb.asm.util;version='7.0',\
    \
    org.slf4j;version='1.7.2',\
    org.slf4j.helpers;version='1.7.2',\
    org.slf4j.spi;version='1.7.2',\
    \
    org.springframework.*;version='4.1.9',\
    \
    ...

Multiple packages are specified using wild card characters, such as * in org.aspectj.*. Groups of packages, such as org.objectweb.asm* packages and org.slf4j* packages are separated by lines that have the \ character only.

Exporting the same package from different JARs leads to “split package” issues. This can cause problems difficult to define. Therefore, refrain from deploying JARs that have the same packages that Liferay exports.

Relying on Liferay for Exported Packages at Run Time

Here’s how to make sure a project has required packages at compile time but relies on Liferay for its exported packages at run time.

Check if packages your project requires are listed in com.liferay.portal.bootstrap module’s export manifest. There are two ways to check:

Bnd Source File: If you have a copy of the Liferay source code, examine the modules/core/portal-bootstrap/system.packages.extra.bnd file’s Export-Package declaration. It shows the exported packages in the user-friendly format shown above. Liferay generates the com.liferay.portal.bootstrap module’s META-INF/system.packages.extra.mf file based on this .bnd file.

JAR Manifest: The META-INF/system.packages.extra.mf file in [Liferay Home]/osgi/core/com.liferay.portal.bootstrap.jar declares the exported packages. The JAR is conveniently found in the Liferay installation but the manifest file’s Export-Package declaration format is less user-friendly.
If your project uses any of the provided third party packages, add the compile time artifacts as dependencies using the providedCompile Gradle scope. Artifacts in the providedCompile scope are available at compile time but excluded from the generated JAR.

For example, if your project uses Spring Bean packages, specify the following artifact dependency in the providedCompile scope.
```
dependencies {
    providedCompile group: "org.springframework", name: "spring-bean", version: "4.1.9"
    ...
}
```